お～になるTo do (Honorific)

Réponses les plus récentes (25 au total)

• 

  Daru

  Don’t sweat it! Remember that if its taking twice the syllables to say the same thing, it’s probably keigo.

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  nikuotoko

  This grammar point is driving me nuts. Up until now I’ve broadly associated plain form with casual and -ます form with polite, and here comes おーになる to destroy that simple connection.

  Can anyone explain historically how Japanese ended up with an honorific form that looks and acts like a casual form we’re told not to use in polite conversation?

  Historically or linguistically rather than grammatically, which I understand thanks to an answer up thread - the trick I think is to stop thinking of “short form” as “casual form”.

  It boggles the mind that one ought to be polite with strangers but that polite form is optional in honorific speech.

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  nekoyama

  You’re mixing up two different concepts.

  • です・ます expresses politeness vs. the person we’re speaking with, regardless of the content of the conversation.
  • おーになる expresses respect vs. the person we’re talking about and who’s doing an action.

  These can be the same person, but they don’t have to be the same person.

  "Miku read a manga"	polite vs. listener	respectful vs. Miku
  ミクさんは漫画を読んだ	no	no
  ミクさんは漫画を読みました	yes	no
  ミクさんは漫画をお読みになった	no	yes
  ミクさんは漫画をお読みになりました	yes	yes

  Additionally, polite forms generally only appear at the end of a sentence. Respectful (and humble) forms can appear anywhere someone does something, including the middle of a sentence three layers of re...